Baby J. at the Hospital

My wife had decided to be induced. She was over a week late, and the doctor had told her if she didn't induce that day she'd wait at least another week. In hindsight, my wife has said she would have waited. After arriving at the hospital, signing in and getting a room, my wife was given a drug for softening the cervix. Baby J.'s grandma was at the hospital with us. We spent most of that day and night watching TV, talking, wondering how the labor was going to be. My wife spent most of the time having mild contractions.

By morning, the contractions had gotten stronger. The doctors determined that the drug to relax my wife's cervix was enough to get the labor going, they wouldn't actually need to administer the drugs that started the contractions. This was a relief. As morning drew closer and closer to afternoon, the contractions were becoming much stronger. My wife asked for an epidural, when the pain started becoming too much for her. We were blessed that day to have a rookie resident learning how to administer epidurals come to our room. This didn't exactly instill us with confidence, especially since we signed all those papers saying the hospital wasn't responsible if my wife died or suffered severe nerve damage from the epidural (how comforting). After they administered the first epidural, they performed a test to see if there was any feeling in my wife's lower body...there was. It hadn't worked. Seeing as my wife had gone from 3cm dilated to nearly fully dilated, the doctors quickly scrambled to administer a second epidural, which...get this...didn't take either.

Then, it was too late. There wouldn't be a third try. At roughly 11:30 in the morning, my wife felt the overwhelming need to push. She was scared. I was scared. I held her hand, and I reassured her as best I could, while the nurse explained what to do. The doctor came in for the delivery. Wasn't it only a few hours ago we were discussing what would happen? Wasn't it only a few hours ago we were still convinced there wasn't a baby in her belly?

Now, this is where I can't exactly explain what it was like. For me, it wasn't real at all. The next thirty minutes went by in about half a heart beat. When the pushing had only started, something fell out of my wife. She started yelling, "What was that? What was that?" She was panicked. It wasn't the baby. It was the caul (the amniotic sac), and it was fully intact. It was a weird thing to look at it, like a big yellowish ball of jelly held in a plastic encasing. I read that babies born with the caul intact are referred to as caulbearers, and they are said to lead lucky lives. So, I guess right from the start, Baby J. was blessed in her own way.

Baby J. and Mommy in the Hospital

After that, I remember that one minute my wife was saying she couldn't do this (and she really wanted to get up and leave), and then the next minute, my wife was shouting, "I'M GOING TO PUSH AS HARD AS I CAN", and our little Baby J. went from being completely inside the womb to flying right out into the doctor's hands. My wife pushed so hard that it only took one solid push to get the baby from crowning to out. My baby was an incredible sight. She came out almost perfectly clean, except for some specks of blood in her hair (which was a dark brown at the time). Her eyes were wide open, and she wasn't crying.

The next few moments were a blur. Baby J. had to immediately see the NICU nurses, because she'd had a bowel movement while in the womb. She was perfectly ok. Then, I took her first picture, and the nurses went to work cleaning her up. I spent the next 20 or so minutes next to my wife, while they stitched her up. And then, I finally got to hold her, my tiny, 7lb 7oz daughter. She gripped my finger with her hand, and she looked up at me. Both she and my wife were utterly exhausted.

A few minutes later, when my wife got to hold Baby J., she started crying, and she blurted out, "That's my baby!"

D.